pet connection

The intersection of commerce and medicine is always a tricky one, in both human and pet care.

I resolve it in large part by working not with a veterinary practice but with a single, primary-care veterinarian within a good practice, a man I can trust to offer me all the options, answer all my questions with honesty and professionalism and suggest treatment that’s based on his considerable expertise. He doesn’t have any trouble referring to specialists or suggesting a second opinion (I don’t often seek out the latter) or writing script to be filled elsewhere at a lower price. In short: When he recommends something, money (both saving it and spending it) isn’t even a consideration. I know that he is all about the medicine, not the money.

Yes, he is a gem, and I will weep bitter tears when he retires.

And get this: He’s an MBA as well as a DVM. He was an executive at Ford when he decided to give it up and become a veterinarian, at a time when he was older than a few of his vet school professors. He understands business and marketing, and he chooses to practice medicine.

In other practices, though, the pressure on veterinarians, especially the young ones, is mighty keen. Veterinarians don’t make the kind of money MDs do, and veterinary medicine is relatively low priced compared to human medicine. (Of course, the presence of health insurance — for those of us who have it — takes  along of the sting out of paying for our own procedures.)

Market pressures make it very easy for veterinary practices to succumb to the appeal of improving the bottom line, especially with seemingly harmless little add-ons neatly packaged by the marketing departments of manufacturers.

On her own blog, Dogged, Christie takes a look at one such, a combination vaccine that packages a preventive-care measure that truly has saved countless canine lives — the parvo vaccine — with a couple of others of such dubious merit that top veterinary schools and colleges don’t recommend giving them:

I picked up [a pamplet]  I’d never seen before, [...] about something called Canine Enteritis Complex. And I’m all, what the heck? I do tend to keep up on canine health issues, dear readers, and I had no clue what this dread new disease was.

That would be because it’s not a disease, and it’s not new. “Many disease agents,” it said, frighteningly, “can cause Canine Enteritis Complex, a potentially deadly inflammation of the small intestine. Some common enteritis-causing pathogens in dogs are parvovirus, coronavirus, and giardia lamblia, a microscopic protozoan that can severely damage the lining of the small intestine.”

Go over and read her explanation of  what the problem is with this product. It’s why Christie’s probably the best writer on pet health in the country. If you come to play, you better bring the science, or she’ll rip you to bits.